White House orders review of 5 million security clearances

U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (Reuters / Jason Reed) / Reuters

Officials in the Obama administration have demanded that federal government agencies evaluate how a total of five million Americans have been granted classified information security clearances and, of those, how many truly require it.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, in a document
obtained by Politico, questioned why more than 1.4 million people
have been authorized for a “Top Secret” clearance level.
Approximately 3.5 million Americans have lesser security
clearance levels.

“I write to express my concern about threats to national
security resulting from the increasing number of people with
eligibility for access to classified national security
information, particularly Top Secret (TS) and Top Secret/Secure
Compartmented Information (TS/SCI),” Clapper wrote.

The directive was dated October 31 and cited at a Senate hearing
earlier this week. Clapper instructed agencies to examine which
employees were on a need to know basis and to revoke access to
classified material for those who were not.

No deadline was mentioned in the notice according to Politico but
a Clapper aide reportedly told a Senate Homeland Security and
Government Affairs subcommittee the process should be completed
by the end of January.

“I ask that agency heads…conduct a comprehensive review
validating that each government employee or contractor who has
been granted a security clearance continues to require such
eligibility for access to classified national security
information in support of their current position or your agency’s
mission,” Clapper continued. “Agencies should debrief all
government and contractor personnel who no longer require such
access and update the appropriate national security database or
repository.”

US clearance process has grown out of control. 1.4 mil. have
Top Secret clearance or higher. Time to clean house: http://t.co/M1HBVeMMDz

The number of US citizens with security clearances is not only a
security burden, Clapper wrote, but a financial one at a time
when federal monetary constraints seem are as tight as they have
been in recent memory.

“As a result of budget shortfalls and the impacts of
sequestration, several agencies temporarily suspended the
initiation of periodic reinvestigations,” he said. “Such
actions foster counterintelligence and national security
risk.”

Much of the problem, Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana) said, is the
ongoing policy of over-classification. Much of the information
marked top secret may pose no threat to national security and in
fact could be merely a source of embarrassment for any of the
various federal agencies.

The topic, addressed in a Government Accountability Office (GAO)
report, was addressed in a Senate hearing this week when
lawmakers wondered why Clapper does not also order periodic
reviews of what information is classified.

“Today, there are nearly five million individuals with a
security clearance. Five million,” Tester said. “And there
are no indications that number will decrease any time soon. But
it only takes one individual to slip through the cracks.”